Archive for September 27th, 2010

Imagine five doors, like the three in “Let’s Make a Deal,” but in these cases, there are no fabulous prizes. No one wins. We hear sirens and see flashing lights as the doors open. There are no models.

There are instead regulators and law enforcers who, in dark sunglasses, black suits and crisp uniforms, point at piles and piles of evidence.

The following 47 articles are organized into five categories that detail and document why a handful of presumably innocent Shriner leaders and those they do business with should be investigated under the RICO statutes.

It would be almost excusable if these were stand alone incidents and, once discovered, were dilligently cleaned up. Instead these crimes and otherwise corrupt irregularities have occurred in a climate of corruption, fueled by fear and retaliation and led by leaders who either participate, promote or protect, above all else.

Most Shriners are kept in the dark about all of this as they dedicate their retirement years to supporting their network of 22 hospitals that now takes insurance to provide medical care for burned and crippled children.

Most Shriners have been brainwashed into blind obedience or are punished, retaliated against and/or sued if they question those leaders who have hidden behind these poor kids to operate a nationwide network of prostitution and profit from their positions of public trust, all at taxpayer expense.

Behind door #1… is Shriners’ corruption.

Behind door #2… is how little burned kids were used as guinea pigs in a clinical research study so bad it was shut down by the FDA.

Behind door #3… is the Shriners’ secret sex group, the Royal Order of Jesters.

Behind door #4… are details about how three Jesters were busted in a FBI human trafficking sting for taking illegal alien prostitutes from state to state for their weekend parties. Those caught include a former New York State Supreme Court judge, his law clerk, a retired police captain and a retired sheriff.

Behind door #5… are details about how 19 Jesters went to Brazil, asking to be called “Masons” and for girls over 13. The guy who took them has been indicted by the Brazilian Federal Police for rape, prostitution and corruption of minors. Categories follow…

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note: “The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.

“Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.

“That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.” – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961)

The US military claimed responsibility for killing scores of insurgents over the weekend as it unleashed its long-awaited offensive against Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO umbrella organization for the US-led occupation, reported the largest body counts in two eastern regions of the country.

In eastern Laghman Province, ISAF reported that a US-led air assault killed at least 30 in an “engagement with enemy fighters” in the Alishing district. The report claimed that there were no injuries to civilians in the area. On Saturday, however, several hundred Afghans demonstrated in the streets of Mihtarlam, the provincial capital, to protest the slaughter of unarmed civilians in the raid. The protesters chanted slogans condemning the US-led occupation.

The Afghan news agency PAN quoted one of the demonstrators, Sharifulla, as saying that no militants had been killed in the operation and that all the victims were noncombatants. The New York Times also quoted a Taliban spokesman as saying there was no activity on the part of its fighters in the area and that all of those killed had been civilians.

Police used fire hoses and fired live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators. “It was not really a protest,” the provincial police chief, Ghulam Aziz, told the Times. “It was actually an insurrection by some elements who want to disrupt security.” After the protests, a spokesman for ISAF said, “If there’s an indication at all of civilian casualties, we will investigate it.”

The other major killing field was in eastern Khost province, where a NATO spokesman reported that 42 “insurgents” were killed in US air strikes after they were detected attempting to cross the border from Pakistan.

Separately, ISAF reported that four “insurgent commanders” had been arrested or killed in Khost, Paktika and Helmand provinces. These appeared to be the result of continuing raids by special operations killing squads that are directed against suspected participants in the armed groups opposing the occupation and the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. These raids have been a major source of civilian casualties.

In another incident, a spokesman for the US-led occupation was forced to acknowledge that US troops had shot and killed two civilians in southern Helmand Province on Sunday. The killings took place in the town of Musa Qala, where troops had set up checkpoints following attacks by members of the Afghan resistance.

The military claimed that the two men, who were riding a motorcycle, ignored “verbal and visual warnings” and continued to accelerate while heading toward the checkpoint. “Initial reports indicate coalition forces followed the appropriate escalation of force procedures,” the ISAF report concluded. That such killings of unarmed civilians are deemed “appropriate” only underscores how common they are, with most going unreported.

Occupation officials reported Saturday that three NATO troops had been killed in two separate bomb blasts, one in the east of the country and the other in the south. They gave no details on the attacks or the nationality of those killed. The latest fatalities bring to 531 the number of foreign troops killed so far in 2010, which is already the bloodiest year for the occupation since the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

Meanwhile, the main focus of US military operations is in and around the southern city of Kandahar, where the largest offensive in the nearly ten-year occupation is now unfolding. Some 8,000 US troops, the majority of them drawn from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team and the 101st Airborne Division, together with Afghan puppet forces and some other foreign troops, are carrying out attacks in the Arghendab River Valley. This is a key approach route to Kandahar and links the city, a Taliban stronghold, to neighboring Helmand Province, which is also a center of the insurgency.

Dubbed Operation Dragon Strike, the attacks have been concentrated in the Zhari and Panjwai districts of Kandahar Province, which are immediately to the west of the city. PAN, the Afghan news agency, cited local officials as reporting that at least five Taliban fighters were killed in clashes Sunday. The US troops have reportedly been compelled to move slowly because of numerous improvised explosive devices planted by the resistance.

ABC News correspondent Miguel Marquez reported from the scene of the offensive: “Throughout the night loud explosions echoed through the Valley as 72-ton Assault Breacher Vehicles cleared wide paths through the thick agricultural area along the Arghendab River which soldiers call ‘the greens.’ Smaller mine-clearing charges were used to clear foot paths of possible improvised explosive devices. The threat of IEDs is the biggest threat to soldiers as they move into territory controlled by the Taliban for years. Soldiers spent much of the night stringing the plastic explosive C4 to trees and walls to destroy known Taliban fighting positions.”

To what extent this clearing of “wide paths” by 72-ton vehicles is destroying the crops of local farmers in the Arghendab valley, the reporter did not indicate. Such destruction seems likely however, and would undoubtedly increase support for the resistance in an area that has exhibited deep hostility to the presence of foreign troops.

Marquez quoted local commanders as comparing the operation in Kandahar to “squeezing an orange” and predicting that it would take months to complete. For the most part, he reported, local residents “keep their distance” from US troops as they patrol Sengaray, a community of roughly 10,000 people in Zhari district that has been occupied by the 101st Airborne.

Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, an ISAF spokesman, warned Sunday, “We expect hard fighting.” US troops, he said, would be “destroying Taliban fighting positions so they will not have anywhere to hide.”

“Afghan and coalition forces are repeatedly hitting the insurgents in their backyard, allowing them no time to regroup,” said another spokesman, Col. Rafael Torres, director of ISAF’s Joint Operations Center. His choice of words only underscored the fact that the US-led military force is attacking an indigenous popular insurgency.

An estimated 30,000 US and other foreign occupation troops have been massed in Kandahar. The offensive was launched shortly after the last of the additional 30,000 US troops deployed to Afghanistan in the Obama administration’s military surge arrived in the country. There are now nearly 100,000 US troops deployed in Afghanistan, together with some 50,000 NATO and other foreign forces.

The Kandahar operation has been widely described as crucial for the Obama surge. However, US officials have until recently been downplaying the military offensive, following the failure of a much-touted offensive in the Marjah district of Helmand Province last February to uproot the resistance.

ABC News quoted two officers involved in the offensive on the “clear, hold and build” strategy being pursued by the US military. “This is where you separate the enemy from the people,” said Lt. Col. Johnny Davis, commander of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment. “This is one of the many phases where we not only bring heavy security, but we bring governance where governance has not been before.”

Capt. Brant Auge, the commander of Bravo Company, told ABC: “The reason it hasn’t worked is because we are giving people a choice between us and the Taliban. The Afghan government is the key, because they’re the ones who can win this thing. It’s not a choice between us and the Taliban, it’s a choice between the Afghan government and the Taliban.” This supposed “choice” highlights the crisis of the US occupation. The Washington-backed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is more discredited now than ever, particularly after September 18 parliamentary elections characterized by rampant fraud.

Evidence of the wholesale vote rigging has continued to mount over the past week, with the Electoral Complaints Commission, a joint Afghan-international monitoring body, reporting nearly 4,000 complaints. Over 1,000 of these have already been classified as “potentially significant,” meaning the fraud reported could have affected the outcome of the race. Amateur videos have surfaced showing election officials and police stuffing ballot boxes and campaign officials openly haggling over the price for buying votes.

In one case in Kandahar Province, border police “handcuffed and detained for the entire day of the election” three separate groups of election workers to prevent them from counting ballots. The workers were then presented with polling papers filled in with fraudulent results and ordered to sign them. Apparently, the operation was coordinated by a close political ally of the local political strongman, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother.

The New York Times also reported violent intimidation of voters in the northern province of Takhar by gunmen supporting Abdul Baqi, a candidate. “Mr. Baqi and his gunmen were slapping and pulling people to the ballot boxes to vote for him,” a local resident told the paper. He added that the gunmen went to the polling section for women and forced election workers to stuff their ballot box with 200 fraudulent votes. “From an overall democracy-building perspective, it does not look rosy,” a Western diplomat told the Times.

The reports make a mockery of Washington’s assertions that the election represented some sort of democratic advance. The senior US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, claimed last week that “the people of Afghanistan sent a powerful message” to the Taliban. On the contrary, the gross fraud and violence perpetrated upon the Afghan people in the course of this rigged vote has undoubtedly strengthened support for those resisting foreign occupation.

Press TV: Kaneez Fatima talks to James Morris on War in Afghanistan

The Tonka Report Editor’s Note:In the video above, I have to disagree with James Morris concerning his statement that Obama is actually in control of the CIA… Just ask JFK!- SJH

Israel and the United States have emerged as the prime suspects behind the Stuxnet worm attack, which has infected the Iranian nuclear plant at Bushehr, following the discovery that a “wealthy group or nation” must have been responsible for the malware assault.

On Sunday, Infowars speculated that Stuxnet was a false flag intended to both target Iran and provide a pretext for the implementation of draconian cybersecurity legislation. That suspicion has been greatly enhanced by new evidence which proves the virus was “created by experts working for a country or a well-funded private group,” according to Liam O Murchu, manager of security response operations at Symantec Corp.

“A number of governments with sophisticated computer skills would have the ability to create such a code. They include China, Russia, Israel, Britain, Germany and the United States,” states the Associated Press report, clearly indicating that the US, Israel, Great Britain, or a combination of the three were behind the attack.

The Stuxnet worm is now “rampaging through Iran,” causing havoc to the country’s industrial infrastructure, having already infected at least 30,000 IP addresses.

There would be no motivation whatsoever for Russia to be behind the attack because they have helped fuel the Bushehr reactor. China has backed US calls for sanctions in response to the nuclear plant, but it can hardly be claimed that the Chinese have aggressively opposed its construction and fueling. Indeed, China has been a regular exporter of nuclear technology and assistance to Iran in recent years.

That leaves three prime suspects, all of whom have followed identical foreign policies in vehemently opposing Iran’s self-proclaimed goal of developing peaceful nuclear energy. Top globalists such as Richard Falkenrath, a principal at Chertoff Group and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, already blamed Israel for the attack before evidence emerged that the virus was the work of a sophisticated nation state. If the United States’ involvement in the attack was to be confirmed, it would completely discredit the foundation of cybersecurity legislation, which is being promoted as a means of defending against cyber attacks launched by terrorists and other nation states.

However, if any US involvement remains concealed, Stuxnet will be hyped as a primary reason for rushing the passage of the amalgamation of the Lieberman and Rockefeller bills, which as we have documented, have little to do with security and everything to do with shutting down free speech on the Internet, despite the fact that Stuxnet was distributed through a physical USB device and not via the public Internet.

Cybersecurity legislation is being promoted as a vital tool to defend the nation’s critical infrastructure against cyber- terrorism. However, as we have highlighted, the threat from cyber-terrorists to the U.S. power grid or water supply is minimal. The perpetrators of an attack on such infrastructure would have to have direct physical access to the systems that operate these plants to cause any damage. Any perceived threat from the public Internet to these systems is therefore completely contrived and strips bare what many fear is the real agenda behind cybersecurity – to enable the government to regulate free speech on the Internet.

Fears that cybersecurity legislation could be used to stifle free speech were heightened when Senator Lieberman told CNN’s Candy Crowley that the real motivation behind the bill was to mimic the Communist Chinese system of Internet policing. “Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” said Lieberman.